Vendor issue blamed for Apple nano screen problems

Breaking news at this late hour brings some clarity to cracked LCD issues experienced by some early adopters of the iPod nano. Apple will, as of today, be accepting returns of iPod nanos whose LCD screens have experienced the spontaneous cracking problem. According to The Wall Street Journal, which quotes Phil Schiller, Apple's VP of world-wide-product marketing, a vendor issue was at the core of the problem.

The problem had been pushed to the forefront of consumers' desktops by a vocal minority, estimated by Schiller to be less than 1 percent of the population who purchased nanos, some of whom banded together on a website set up by a disgruntled customer (Registration required):

Matthew Peterson, an independent consultant in the financial-services industry, said he was so upset by the damage to his iPod nano that he created a Web site called ipodnanoflaw.com, later changing the name to flawedmusicplayer.com to avoid trademark conflicts with Apple. Mr. Peterson said the screen cracked on his device after he sat down with it in the front pocket of his pants, as he had done many times with other iPods he owns without damage occurring.

I was interested in these accounts earlier this week and took an informal poll in our own Macintoshian Achaia forum. Many nano owners who responded (including myself) initially believed that many of the broken nanos were the result of poor handling, but the number of complaints was curious and kept nagging at my subconscious. We had a fair amount of skepticism about the claims due to our experience putting a nano through iPod hell with nary an LCD crack.

The problems described on the aforementioned website range from the kooky to the genuinely confused to everywhere in between. Much of the initial source of frustration came from the discovery that Apple would not replace the nanos because the LCD wasn't covered under its standard iPod warranty. Although the founder of flawedmusicplayer.com was eventually given a "one-time warranty exception" from Apple's executive care team, he continued to collect e-mails from afflicted nano users around the world.

Now that Apple will replace iPods whose screens have spontaneously imploded, we're left with another seemingly related, but entirely different complaint about the nano: scratches. To be sure, all iPods and even iBooks have always been notoriously prone to scratches due to their glossy texture, but the amount of complaints about the nano in specific has led Schiller to comment:

Apple's Mr. Schiller said the iPod-nano case and screen aren't more susceptible to scratching than previous versions of the iPod and that the company has received few complaints about the matter.

Most likely, the complaints are coming exclusively from the owners of black nanos, who are even more likely to notice the scratching if only from the contrast due to the color of the product. Also inherent to the black products?and well known to PSP owners?is the scourge of fingerprints. While not permanent like the scratches, many people have become upset at the constant coat of finger goop on their US$200 device. There are three previous models of iPod in our apartment and every one of them exhibits some level of scratching in the right light. However, most people never notice or unconsciously minimize the amount of scratching due to the white color of traditional iPods.

Now that Apple has—sort of—taken responsibility for the broken screen issue, the nano is left nearly blemish-free (sans the actual blemishes). The only lingering questions are if the rush on black Apple products will continue now that consumers know the black nanos are smudge collectors, and if Apple's "vendor issues" will slow down sales of the new iPod on the block.